As an important cornerstone in the Veterinary Medicine program, the Teaching Animal Unit incorporates live-animal experiential training with targeted didactic and teaching laboratory exposures within the curriculum. Through experiences in the Teaching Animal Unit, students are provided learning opportunities for species-specific management, species handling, clinical sampling, and treatment techniques that are essential to post-graduate practice.

The NC State Teaching Animal Unit is unique amongst veterinary colleges due in part to its proximity and immediacy to the College of Veterinary Medicine. Students gain a tremendous benefit by having access to a full working farm with each major livestock species represented, right in their own backyard. The primary vision of the master plan is to ensure the program can continue to deliver this unique and essential experience to future classes through careful analysis and planning of long-range program needs, by proposing a scalable, phased approach to meet the multi-spaces management and teaching needs, and through the development of an overall strategy for modernization of the facilities.

NCSU’s Teaching Animal Unit comprises 93 Acres within the 215 Acre College of Veterinary Medicine. Of these 93 Acres, Erdy McHenry worked to expand the pasture efficiency by 21%.